Clare Paronich, Samantha Esposito EduG 789- Final Paper Part I Teresa is the eighth grade student who

we chose to test using the WIAT. Teresa attends the Ursuline School in New Rochelle in Westchester. The Ursuline School is a prestigious private Catholic School that is well known for its advanced curriculum and challenging academic programs. Teresa is a highly motivated student who is similar to her sister Jillian. She wants to study education when she attends college. She likes to read fiction, nonfiction, and fairy tale books. She feels that her strongest subjects are History, English and Science. It was clear that Teresa was not a student that struggled in school. In fact, she does extremely well in school. Teresa is a well-behaved student who pays attention in class and gets all of her work done in a timely fashion. It is obvious that school is her first priority. Although she plays sports like volley ball, she does not let that interfere with her studies. Although Teresa is an exceptional student, her reading comprehension scores were extremely low at her grade level, according to the WIAT. We attribute this to the fact that these tests were administered after school. It is very likely that she was tired, uninterested in the subject/passage or truly has difficulty comprehending at her grade level. Teresa also had some difficulty pairing the vocabulary words. Her receptive vocabulary score was also very low. We can make the assumption that she is reading books that are not challenging her and therefore, she is not retaining grade level vocabulary words.

Teresa scored perfectly on the reading comprehension portions that were below her grade level. She started struggle once she got to about the sixth grade level, but her scores were nowhere near below average. For some reason, when she took the reading comprehension test for her grade level, her scores were low. We were surprised by how low they were since Teresa did she was an avid reader. Therefore, we do not think the WIAT was accurate in testing Teresas reading comprehension skills. Writing: Teresa did well on the writing portion of the WIAT. After reviewing her writing piece we have given Teresa 21 out of 24 according to the rubric on the essay composition subtest. Our suggestions are to practice her grammar. We suggest using websites like BrainPOP, which has videos that teach grammar to students about her age. She struggled when using contractions. She particularly struggled with the contraction its. Teresa was confused about how to use it and used it wrong throughout the entire writing piece. We were also able to have Teresa provide us with two writing samples both prompted and unprompted. Both pieces again were well written. The prompted writing piece was stronger than the unprompted sample. We first administered the unprompted writing piece which she could write about anything she wished. Math: On the mathematics portions of the WIAT Teresa scored average on all except the math problem solving subtest. Typically, problem solving is something that most students struggle with. Although, Teresa is an eighth grade student she completed the entire subtest. She was able to answer all of the problems at her grade level correctly. Once Teresa reached the math

problems at a twelfth grade level she began to struggle which is understandable. We did notice for the majority of the problem solving questions Teresa did need to use a pen and paper to help her with her work. In addition, the last part of the test is simply solving numbers and operations. She struggled mostly with the problem solving. It was difficult for her to read the problem and figure out what the problem was asking. This is not a surprising since Teresa did not score well on the reading comprehension part of the WIAT. Therefore, we conclude that Teresa needs to practice her reading comprehension in order to enhance her vocabulary, comprehension, and problem solving skills in mathematics. Part II IEP Goals Within one year, Teresa will learn and apply reading strategies such as the use of context clues and supporting details to improve reading comprehension with 70% accuracy or better. Within one year, Teresa will use supporting details to understand the setting of the story with 70% accuracy or better. Within one year, Teresa will use context clues and key math terms to help solve for math word problems with 70% accuracy or better. Within one year, Teresa will master multiplication tables to quickly solve multiplication problems with 70% accuracy or better. Within one year, Teresa will use supporting details and develop strong topic sentences for writing pieces with 70% accuracy or better.

Lesson Plan 1 GOAL: Students will use supporting details to understand the setting of the story. Essential questions: What is the setting of a story? How can we identify the setting of story? How does the setting affect the story? How can you figure out the setting of a story? OBJECTIVES: o Students will be able to identify the setting of a story. o Students will be able to recognize the significance of a setting. o Students will be able to make connections using the setting of stories. STANDARDS: Reading Standard for Grade 2 7. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. 1. Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

PROCEDURE: Connection/ Relevance/ Background The students have been learning about story elements prior to this lesson. Then the teacher will do an activity with the students where students have to sort phrases that are either time or places. Once that is finished, the teacher will begin by writing setting on the board and the definition of it. Then the teacher will discuss with the students the setting of a story. Motivation- The teacher will create several flash cards with descriptions of settings on one card and the name or picture of a character on another. For example, one card might describe a castle and a pumpkin carriage, while the other card might have a picture and name of Cinderella. The students can match the setting to the character. As your students matches up each pair of cards, ask him or her how she knows that the two go together. DEVELOPMENT: The goal of this lesson is to teacher students to determine the setting of a story. Vocabulary- Setting- the time or place of a story Time- when the story is taking place, the exact time or time period of a story Place- where the story is taking place

Students will be given independent worksheets to do in their reading groups. All the worksheets will be differentiated. Three groups: For the lower groups: Students will be given a worksheet where they have to match the picture of setting to the title of the story. (The stories are well known and common to second graders.)

For the medium group: Students will be given a worksheet where they have to create the setting (a time and a place) when given a genre (which was discussed in previous classes) For the higher group: They will be given a worksheet that requires them to recall stories based on the setting provided. Summary- To close the lesson, someone from each group will share what they have just completed. Then the teacher will tell the students that they will be reading a story tomorrow and will have to find the setting of that story. DIFFERENTIATION/ MODIFICATION: Visual and Auditory- Students will have visuals on the board that illustrate time and place. Kinesthetic- Students will have the opportunity to actively participate in classroom activities by coming up to the board and working in groups. Interpersonal- Students will be able to work in groups if they choose. Intrapersonal- Students will be able to work independently if they choose RESOURCES: Brainpop.com Common Core Standards

Lesson Plan 2 GOAL: Within one year, Teresa will use supporting details and develop strong topic sentences for writing pieces with 70% accuracy or better.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS: What makes a strong topic sentence? How do we construct topic sentences? How do we include supporting details that coincide with our topic sentence? OBJECTIVES: Students will construct topic sentences. Students will create strong topic sentences. Students will revise writing pieces to add details.

STANDARDS: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. a. Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which ideas are logically grouped to support the writers purpose. b. Provide logically ordered reasons that are supported by facts and details. c. Link opinion and reasons using words, phrases, and clauses (e.g., consequently, specifically). d. Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented.

PROCEDURES: Connection/Relevance/Background- Students will be learning how to create strong topic sentences and to add supporting details to their writing pieces. The teacher will do an activity

with the students that require them to edit writing pieces and decipher between weak and strong topic sentences. Motivation- To engage the students in the lesson, the teacher will read a story Buckle Up? The students will be asked to state the main idea of the story based off of the topic sentence and supporting details. DEVELOPMENT: Teacher will explain that strong paragraphs have a topic sentence. This topic sentence is what the paragraph is mainly about. Often, it is the first or last sentence in a paragraph but sometimes it is in the middle of the paragraph. I will model the strategy of finding the sentence that the paragraph is mainly about in order to identify the main idea. I will read the first two paragraphs of Buckle Up? (provided in Books and Passages) and identify the sentences that are the main idea (or the topic sentence) in the paragraphs. Ask: How did I find the main idea of the paragraph? Students should respond that you looked for the topic sentence in the paragraph that summarizes what the paragraph is mostly about. Teacher will continue reading the passage Buckle Up? and use the strategy of identifying the sentence that tells us what each paragraph is mostly about. Students will work with partners to identify and underline the main idea of each paragraph. We will discuss how we determined the main idea of each paragraph. Teacher will use the strategy of reading all the sentences in a paragraph to identify the main idea of each paragraph. Three groups of students will be provided with separate tasks that require them to identify and underline the main idea of each story.

DIFFERENTIATION: Tier 1 (Above grade level)- Will have to create a topic sentence and provide three supporting details for that topic sentence based off a picture provided. Tier 2 (On grade level)- Will be given a topic sentence and one supporting details and will be required to write two more details. Tier 3 (Below grade level)- Will be given a short story, the topic sentence will be identified and the students will be required to underline the supporting details. RESOURCES: http://www.readworks.org/sites/default/files/bundles/lessons-grade4-main-idea.pdf Engageny.org

Strategies/Interventions that were successful: Through the use of graphic organizers Teresa was able to improve her writing skills as well as work on several reading strategies to improve her comprehension. Over the past couple of months Teresa recognized the importance of planning out her writing. She was able to decipher between good and bad writing pieces and realize what made a writing piece well written. Teresa also was able to improve her math skills by practicing her multiplication tables. This was evident by the increase her timed math tests that were given to her weekly towards the end of our meetings. Teresa also began to recognize key math terms in word problems and identify what the problem was looking for. Through observations we were able to see that Teresa was able to recognize good writing pieces. She also was able to better comprehend reading passages. Each week Teresa completed

graphic organizers with more detail and accuracy. Throughout the final weeks Teresa was required to complete a writing piece. As we worked on it each week, Teresa created stronger topic sentences and was able to add more details. Her final piece improved drastically. Part III As our time with Teresa has come to an end, we recommend that she keeps up the good work. Our suggestions for further improvement would be to continue working with graphic organizers to plan out her writing pieces. We also recommend she uses these organizers to help her comprehend reading passages. Teresa should also continue to work with her multiplication flashcards to ensure her facts are internalized. To continue to successfully work on math word problems, we suggest that Teresa takes the time to underline key math terms and identify what the problem is looking for before solving it.